Overdose
by Sinyr
Summary: A short story of the level "Overdose", taken from the video game "Hotline Miami". Please note that this isn't an EXACT re-telling of the level, some things are changed. Enjoy.


April 16th, 1989.

I awaken from a drunken slumber. The television in my room is almost blinding as I look over to it, a "Game Over" screen from a game I was attempting to play the night before on my NES teasing me, almost tempting me to retry my previous night's attempt at a solid playthrough. But I have other things on my mind.

I lazily pull myself out of my bed, nearly tripping over several bottles as I make my way to the kitchen, observing several dirty pizza boxes from nights past, crumbs and leftover slices attracting flies. I really should clean this shit. But motivation for trivial things has never been my strong point. I walk to the sink to splash water into my face, the bathroom sink being further than this kitchen sink. As the haze in my mind slowly fades, I look down to the newspaper clippings that I have begun to collect..

"...six bodies found on East 7th St... ...Police suspects ties to illegal drug trade..."

"...witnesses claims seeing monster leaving the scene..."

Nothing new. Typical tabloid journalism. I almost want to laugh at how these jounalists will put any old thing down to rake in the profits, but I simply cannot find the effort within me to do so. I deduce that I'm still far too groggy to care. I take myself to the living room, an empty space barely deserving of the name. I consider sitting on the ratty, ruined thing I call my couch to light up a cigarette and decide where the rest of my day is going, when I see that once again, I have a voicemail. I click the play button.

"This is 'Thomas' from the methadone clinic. We've scheduled a short meeting for you tonight. We're at NW 184th street, APT 105. And don't worry... We know discretion is of importance to our clients."

Ugh.

I slip out of my apartment and jump into my car, driving myself to the location stated on the voicemail. I attempt to tune the radio in on my way, but unsurprisingly it fails to work. The only soundtrack I'm going to get on my journey is the sound of static. Thank fuck that the apartment is close.

Apartment 105.

I can already see from the outside that this is a complete shithole of an apartment. But renovation is not what I'm here to do. That's the landlord's job. That is of course, assuming the landlord is even living at this point in time. I retrieve a mask from the trunk of my car, and as I pull it over my head, I am immediately struck with a sense of utter bloodlust. Time to begin.

I rush through the door at the first son of a bitch that I lay eyes on, and tear out his throat with little effort. His friend damn near throws up on the spot as he watches the gory events unfold. Good. I like it when they make things easy. I pry the golf club from the dead man's hand and smash it across Barf-Bag's head, the blood exploding from his head as if it were a grape, and spilling across the floor. I look down and notice that one of his eyeballs has loosened from its socket, hanging on by its stalk as it appears to look up at me. Heh.

I go to work on the two mobsters up ahead, not even thinking about what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, just moving and killing, almost as if I'm not the one even doing all of this. As if it's all a vision. A dream. A nightmare. Filled with blood, pain, and suffering. Soon after my thoughts land back into reality, I realise that I've killed everyone on this floor, and am still holding onto one of them by the collar of his blue shirt. Well. It was blue. I'm sure it was.. Fuck it, he's dead, I've no time to think about the colour of a cunt's shirt right now. Gotta move on. Gotta go upstairs. Gotta clear this apartment. I throw aside the bent golf club and pick up a baseball bat dropped by the recently deceased, amazed it's even intact. I guess russians do take care of their personal possessions. Hah. Hahahahahahah.

I run up the stairs and hang back outside a door for a moment, waiting for a sound, anything to tell me that there's at least one more fucking asshole up here. As if to answer my pleas, the sound of footsteps reverb around the room. I clutch my bat, ready and waiting. The footsteps stop on the other side of the door.

The rush of the kill to come flows through me as I fly through the door, managing to catch my next victim behind it as he smashes to the floor and skids across it, clutching his possibly broken arm in pain whilst screaming bloody murder. He'll have a few more problems than that soon. I smile to myself beneath the mask as I walk over to the now sobbing mess of a man, bloodied bat raised ever so slightly, just in case his dumb little pals actually hear his screams over the loud music.. How unlikely. How unfortunate, for him.

I straddle his waist, taking note of his pants-shittingly scared expression before smashing the bat against his forehead with enough force to hear the sickening crunch of bone breaking into his brain. I raise the bat, blood dashing across the room from it and smash it into the mobster's skull again. And again. And again. And again, until there is nothing left of his head but shattered skull and mashed up brain.

Slowly, I get up, and look around, wondering just how the fuck those idiots did not hear the events which just went down. Whatever. I drop the broken bat and take Mr. Mashed-Potato Head's pistol, quickly checking to see how many bullets are left in the clip (12.. I'm amazed), before walking over to the door, hugging the wall before donkey-kicking that door open, much to the confusion of the drug-addled morons in the next room. I can see in their eyes that they weren't banking on any visitors. Much less a visitor wearing a rubber chicken mask named Richard. I fire off 4 shots at both men, long before they even get it into their heads to use the guns they held. Every shot connects. One in the chest, one in the head.. on both men. I take a small moment to appreciate my personal achievement before hearing a commotion in the bathroom. Really? I have to catch some asshole with his pants down?

I did indeed catch this one with his pants down. The weird part being that he was not even sat on the toilet. He was in the corner, face down on the bathroom tiles, nose pouring blood and screaming something about the letter 'A' coming to kill us all whilst simultaneously shitting into the air. I'm not sure what sights you have seen in your life, but I am going to wager that this is not one of them. I could have left this wreck of a man in his fecal matter to rot, but I dare not risk allowing this vile prick to live. So I shot him up the asshole, silencing his nonsense and splattering his rotten brains across the very unclean floor. I guess I was the letter 'A', after all.

I go to a nearby couch and slump down upon it, attempting to catch my breath after all of the preceding events.

"GO TO CAR!"

Fuck off, I need to catch my-

"GO TO CAR!"

Seriously? Am I not even allowed-

"GO TO CAR!"

Wait, just who the fuck are you, anyway?

"GO TO CAR!"

I pull off the rubber chicken mask, bewildered at this new and sudden voice in my head.. that somehow stopped with the removal of the mask. How weird. Surely it cannot be connected..

A loud bang from the kitchen awakens me from my thoughts and I jolt upwards from the couch, before looking at the mask one more time and pulling it over my head once more.

"GO TO CAR!"

I decide not to question or fight this voice any longer, and make my way through the rooms, looking at every broken body in my path, noticing that the stove beside Mr. Mashed-Potato Head had exploded, shredding up half of his body and making a rather ungodly mess of what was probably supposed to be a kitchen. So that's what that bang was. Oh well. I head down the stairs and run through the front door, almost jumping into my car. I rip the mask off from my head, gasping for air as I try to make sense of what just happened. Perhaps the mask is some evil demon, tempting me to perform such vile acts of violence. I then begin to laugh, and really laugh hard, at this silly theory. What utter nonsense. I look over to the mask.

"After all, who really put the mask on this morning?"

.. What? Did.. Did it really just talk? No.. No, it can't really have just spoken. Fuck, I must have inhaled a bit of whatever those russian cunts were smoking. Smelled like spice. Yeah, of course it was. Fucking russians.

I snap myself out of my thoughts, and check the glove compartment of my car. As always, a pack of cigarettes peeks out from it at me, like a welcomed friend. I take a cigarette from the pack and place it back into the glove compartment, punching it shut. Looking out of my windshield at the darkeningly orange sky, I place the cigarette into my mouth and light it up, taking a long drag before starting up the car, and driving into the sunset of Miami.

The sound of static being my only soundtrack.


End file.
